Say and Seal, Volume II

"I feel nicely.—Only a little bruised and battered feeling, which isn't unpleasant."

"Will you have anything?—a cup of tea?—that might do you good."

Faith looked dubious at the cup of tea; but then rose up and said it would disturb her mother, and she would just go and sleep.

"It won't disturb her a bit,"—Mr. Linden said, reseating her,—"sit still—I'll send Reuben up to see."

He left her there a very few minutes, apparently attending to more than one thing, for he came back through the eating-room door; bringing word to Faith that her fire and room were in nice order, and her mother fast asleep there in the rocking-chair to keep guard; and that she should have a cup of tea in no time. And with a smile at her, he went back into the eating-room, and brought thence her cup and plate, and requested to be told just how the tea should be made to please her, and whether he might invade the dairy for cream.

"If I could put this cloak over my shoulders, I would get some myself. Will you put it on for me? please.—Is there fire in the kitchen? I'll go and make the tea."

"Is there nothing else you would like to do?" he said standing before her,—"you shall not stir! Do you think I don't know cream when I see it?"—and he went off again, coming back this time in company with Reuben and the tea-kettle, but the former did not stay. Then with appeals to her for directions the tea was made and poured out, and toast made and laid on her plate; but she was not allowed to raise a finger, except now to handle her cup.

"It's very good!" said Faith,—"but—don't you remember you once told me two cups of cocoa were better than one?"

It is to be noted in passing, that all Faith's nameless addresses were made with a certain gentle, modulated accent, which invariably implied in its half timid respect the "Mr. Linden" which she rarely forgot now she was not to say.

"Dear child! I do indeed," he said, as if the remembrance wore a bright one. "But I remember too that my opinion was negatived. Faith, I used to wish then that I could wait upon you—but I would rather have you wait upon me, after all!"

Faith utterly disallowed the tone of these last words, and urged her request in great earnest. He laughed at her a little—but brought the cup and drank the tea,—certainly more to please her than himself; watching her the while, to see if the refreshment were telling upon her cheeks. She was very little satisfied with his performance.

"Now I'll go and wake up mother," she said at last rising. "Don't think of this evening again but to be glad of everything that has happened. I am."

"I fear, I fear," he said looking at her, "that your gladness and my sorrow meet on common ground. Child, what shall I do with you?"—but what he did with her then was to put her in that same cradle and carry her softly upstairs, to the very door of her room.

CHAPTER VI

The same soft snow-storm was coming down when Faith opened her eyes next morning; the air looked like a white sheet; but in her room a bright fire was blazing, reddening the white walls, and by her side sat Mrs. Derrick watching her. Very gentle and tender were the hands that helped her dress, and then Mrs. Derrick said she would go down and see to breakfast for a little while.

"Wasn't it good your room was warm last night?" she said, strokingFaith's hair.

Faith's eyes acknowledged that.

"And wasn't it good you were asleep!" she said laughing and kissingMrs. Derrick. "Mother!—I was so glad!"

"That's the funny part of it," said Mrs. Derrick. "Reuben's just about as queer in his way as Mr. Linden. The only thing I thought from the way he gave the message, was that somebody cared a good deal about his new possession—which I suppose is true," she added smiling; "and so I just went to sleep."

Mrs. Derrick went down; and Faith knelt on the rug before the fire and bent her heart and head over her bible. In great happiness;—in great endeavour that her happiness should stand well based on its true foundations and not shift from them to any other. In sober endeavour to lay hold, and feel that she had hold, of the happiness that cannot be taken away; to make sure that her feet were on a rock, before she stooped to take the sweetness of the flowers around her. And to judge by her face, she had felt the rock and the flowers both, before she left her room.

The moment she opened her door and went out into the hall, Mr. Linden opened his,—or rather it was already open, and he came out, meeting her at the head of the stairs. And after his first greeting, he held her still and looked at her for a moment—a little anxiously and intently. "My poor, pale little child!" he said—"you are nothing but a snowdrop this morning!"

"Well that is a very good thing to be," said Faith brightly. But the colour resemblance he had destroyed.

She was lifted and carried down just as she had been carried up last night, and into the sitting-room again; for breakfast was prepared there this morning, and the sofa wheeled round to the side of the fire all ready for her. How bright the room looked!—its red curtains within and its white curtains without, and everything so noiseless and sweet and in order. Even the coffeepot was there by this time, and Mrs. Derrick arranged the cups and looked at Faith on the sofa, with eyes that lost no gladness when they went from her to the person who stood at her side. Faith's eyes fell, and for a moment she was very sober. It was only for a moment.

"What a beautiful storm!" she said. "I am glad it snows. I am going to do a great deal of work to-day."

Mr. Linden looked at her. "Wouldn't you just as lieve be talked to sleep?"

She smiled. "You—couldn't—do that, Mr. Linden."

"Mr. Linden can do more than you think—and will," he said with a little comic raising of the eyebrows.

For a while after breakfast Faith sat alone, except as her mother came in and out to see that she wanted nothing,—alone in the soft snowy stillness, till Mr. Linden came in from the postoffice and sat down by her, laying against her cheek a soft little bunch of rosebuds and violets.

"Faith," he said, "you have been looking sober—what is the reason?"

"I haven't been looking too sober, have I? I didn't know I was looking sober at all."

She was looking quaint, and lovely; in the plain wrapper she had put on and the soft thoughtful air and mien, in contrast with which the diamonds jumped and flashed with every motion of her hand. A study book lay in her lap.

"How did all that happen last night?" said Mr. Linden abruptly.

"Why!"—said Faith colouring and looking down at her ring—"I was standing in the doorway and Nero was coming out with that great lamp; and when he got opposite the screen something fell on it, I believe, from the burning bookcases, and it was thrown over against him—I thought the lamp and he would all go over together—and I jumped;—and in putting up my hand to the lamp I suppose, for I don't remember, the fluid must have run down my arm and on my shoulder—I don't know how it got on fire, but it must have been from some of the burning wood that fell. The next I knew, you were carrying me to the drawing-room—I have a recollection of that."

He listened with very grave eyes.

"Were you trying to take the lamp from Nero?"

"O no. I thought it was going to fall over."

"What harm would it have done the floor?"

The tinge of colour on Faith's cheek deepened considerably, and her eyes lifted not themselves from the diamonds. She was not ready to speak.

"I did not think of the floor"—

"Of what then?"

She waited again. "I was afraid some harm would be done,"—

"Did you prevent it?"

"I don't know"—she said rather faintly.

Gently her head was drawn down till it rested on his shoulder.

"Faith," he said in his own low sweet tones, "I stretched a little silken thread across the doorway to keep you out—did you make of that a clue to find your way in?"

She did not answer—nor stir.

There were no more questions asked—no more words said; Mr. Linden was as silent as she and almost as still. Once or twice his lips touched her forehead, not just as they had ever done it before, Faith thought; but some little time had passed, when he suddenly took up the book which lay in her lap and began the lesson at which it lay open; reading and explaining in a very gentle, steady voice, a little moved from its usual clearness. Still his arm did not release her. Faith listened, with a semidivided mind, for some time; there was something in this state of things that she wished to mend. It came at last, when there was a pause in the lesson.

"I am glad of all that happened last night," she said, "except the pain to you and mother. There is nothing to be sorry for. You shouldn't be sorry."

"Why not, little naughty child?—and why are you glad?"

"Because—it was good for me,"—she said, not very readily nor explicitly.